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Re: Reality, and what it means to you.

Reality to me seems directly related to our minds. I think Fred hit on something there by mentioning a distinction between our individual reality vs a group consensus reality.

Ask a million people what they think reality is and I bet it becomes clearer to the interviewer that each person's individual reality is based in large part on what they know. And what you learn/know directly shapes what you believe. When you ask a person about reality, you're mostly getting a description of what they believe based on what they've been taught, or what they've gone out and learned about. i.e., what they know.

Reality to an astrophysicist is probably a lot more complicated than the description of reality that you might get from a high school dropout.

And if you have both people standing next to each other when you ask them, then you introduce the dynamic of ego into the situation, where each person will feel judged if their answer is not as awesome sounding as the person next to them. :-)

So when someone says that the universe is expanding not because the galaxies are in motion, but rather because space is expanding, they are using conformal language-- the conformal distances between the galaxies are not changing, so they are not moving, but the distance between them is increasing, because the "board is stretching."

And just when I think I had it, I said, "wait. Is he saying conformal distances when he means conformal relationship? And I confused myself again. And I did it 2 or 3 times, too. Perhaps, it'll read different, after more coffee. But thanks... dammit.Fred

"Life IS mystical! Its just that we're used to it." - Wolf, the movie
"Dad, if God is everywhere then, when he's in a piece of paper, is he squished?" - My daughter, age 7